Early Reading to Children: The Early Bird Catches the Worm

Abstract

Primary caregivers are often encouraged to read to their children from a very young age as we know that reading to children plays a very important role in their literacy development. However, little is known about whether the onset of reading to a child is a specifi c predictor of language abilities when controlling for child and family characteristics. Literacy skills and other cognitive abilities of 746 German children were assessed shortly before school entry and results were compared to those of a recent Australian study. Parents were asked how old their children were when they were fi rst read to and how often they currently read to their children. In both countries, the age at which ch..